Bird watching in Senegal - July 2025

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Jiffy (also jiff)

noun [in SING.] informal a moment: we'll be back in a jiffy.

ORIGIN late 18th cent.: of unknown origin.

So as you understand, in a jiff pretty much depends on your internet.

So I put a “Next” button here and I hope that there isn't any problem to understand how to use that one. So just CLICK the “Next” button on your left hand side and you will be on the next page in a jiff!

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คุณพูดภาษาไทยได้ไหม ไม่มีปัญหา ถ้าคุณต้องการไปหน้าถัดไป ให้กดปุ่ม “Next” ข้างบนนี้

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E ni Svenskar och inte förstår Engelska så ska ni skämmas. J och Björn, med det menar jag inte att alla mina stavfel ska ältas varje gång vi träffas.

Well, the flag of Skåne, just a BONUS flag.

July 2025

Day 4: Birding in the Djoudj Birds Park and Ross Bethio

The morning will dedicated to do some birdwatching in the most important birds habitat in Northern Senegal, with of the Djoudj Birds Reserve, where were recorded 320 species of birds.

Here we can see: the river prinia, white-faced whistling duck, garganey, spur-winged geese, Greater and Lesser flamingoes, knob-billed geese, great flock of white pelican, African darter, African fish eagle.

Lunch at NDiagabaar Camp and the afternoon, we will go on birding .

Dinner and overnight at Hotel Diamarek

Saturday 26 ^rd of July 2025 and we are leaving at 8 o'clock. My Guide will stay at the hotel today, he got sick yesterday. I told him to stay at the hotel today so he would get better.

We will pick up my other Guide on the way to Djoudj Birds Park and Ross Bethio in the north. My Guide will have a rest and I hope he is OK tomorrow. Anyway, we turn off national road N2 crossing a small bridge across a canal that goes along N2.

N2 Road

The N2 road is one of the national roads of Senegal. It connects the west and the east of the country in a large arc following the northern frontier from the outskirts of the capital Dakar via Thiès, Louga, Saint-Louis, Richard Toll, Thilogne, Ouro Sogui, Kidira and Nayé on the border with Mali.

By Plucas58 - Own work using: Senegal location map.svg by NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53486722

From the bridge it is a dirt road taking us out to the rice paddies. The first bird we see after having crossed the bridge is a Black Crake in the vegetation at the canal.

The bird was very shy and it took me quite some time before I managed to get a poor picture. We continue out in the wilderness driving along the dirt road. We are stopping to try to get pictures of one of all the Yellow-crowned Bishop we see in the rice paddies.

No picture, but I manage to get a recording of the bird.

We hear one Zitting Cisticola and I get both pictures and a recording. Zitting Cisticola, a bird I have seen many times in Thailand.

Black Crake

Zitting Cisticola

Zitting Cisticola

Listen to the Yellow-crowned Bishop

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

Sitting in the field next to the gravel road

Listen to the Zitting Cisticola

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

Sitting in the field next to the gravel road

Listen to the River Prinia

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

Sitting in the field next to the gravel road

The rice paddies are full of birds, of course, Sudan Golden Sparrow, huge groups of them flying around foraging on seeds. Very hard to get them on picture, but I managed to get one female Sudan Golden Sparrow.

The paddies are also full of egrets and herons, I have not seen many Squacco Heron in my life, but the paddies were full of them.

Driving along the dirt road and we stop to have a look at birds in a small lake next to the road. Thousands of birds but very far away. I ask the Guide if there is any place that we can come close to the water.

There is no way to come closer, what a disappointment! All these birds and not possible to get any pictures. I took a few pictures for ID purpose, but that was about it and then they went to the trash bin.

Female Sudan Golden Sparrow

Little Bittern

Ross Béthio

Ross Béthio is a town of commune status in the Dagana Department in Saint-Louis Region of Senegal. The population in 2023 was 16,225.

The town lies on the N2 road connecting it to Saint-Louis and Dakar to the west and Richard Toll to the east.

The local economy is based on the growing of rice on land irrigated by water from the River Senegal and the subsequent manufacture of energy from the rice husks by biomass gasification.

We continue towards Ross Béthio and the dirt road goes between open fields and it looks like it is mostly sand. But there are plenty canals / irrigation canals.

We cross on canal/ river and there are no birds to be seen. A minute later we cross another canal/ river and we spot one African Jacana sitting on a nest.

We leave the dirt road to get closer to the African Jacana. Then we discover one Common Moorhen foraging on the water.

Crossing the first river

Crossing the first river

We are on the right way

Crossing the second river river

African Jacana sitting on eggs

Common Moorhen

I have been using the eBird hotspot: Mare de Ross Bethio and now we have been driving for 95 minutes and we had covered almost 13 km. So, I stopped the eBird app and restarted it again.

I changed name to CASL Ferme , it is not a hotspot, just a name on the map I use.

We continue along the dirt track towards Djoudj Birds Park. We drive past a huge dust field, dust field on our right-hand side and a canal on our left-hand side. We pass one adult Kittlitz's Plover with a baby. I do not know what they are doing in the dust field.

But they were walking around and we left them alone when I had a picture of the bird.

Continuing along the dry dirt road and we reach a T-intersection. Left hand side and there is an irrigation canal and some people are fishing from the road side. We turn right and now we have vegetation on both side of the dirt road.

There is a small creek and we get of the dirt road to drive along the small creek. There are many birds in the creek. We spotted two Malachite Kingfisher and seven Common Moorhens.

Kittlitz's Plover

Kittlitz's Plover

Malachite Kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

Wood Sandpiper

Kittlitz's Plover

Kittlitz's Plover

Squacco Heron

Listen to the Squacco Heron

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

One big group, about 19 flushed from the field

Pied Kingfisher

Coming out on the other side and we spotted at least 19 Squacco Herons when we flushed them from the reeds. I managed to get a recording of the birds when they were flying around.

We got to see a couple of African Swamphens together with herons in the wetlands. Crossing a bridge and there were three Common Sandpipers and three Pied Kingfishers.

We approach the eBird hotspot: PN du Djoudj--Station biologique et environs and I turn off my eBird app, restarting it using the eBird hotspot: PN du Djoudj--Station biologique et environs

We are soo stopping to record one Green-backed Camaroptera, we could not see the bird, only hear it. But I got a recording of the bird.

Listen to the Green-backed Camaroptera

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

Sitting in a bush next to the dust track

Greater Flamingo

Greater Flamingo

Kittlitz's Plover

Common Redshank

Pink-backed Pelican

Lake at the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Coming out in the open leaving the vegetation behind and we could see the lake at the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary. We were hungry and we had ordered food at a restaurant close by.

We drove along the lake at the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary to check-out the bird life. And there was a lot of birds, mostly waders. We reached the entrance to the PN du Djoudj--Station biologique et environs and we turned around.

We parked outside a white wall and it looked to be a nice place, coming inside the gate and it was a different story. There were two rows of bungalows, 8 in total. There was a building across a dust square. No front wall and it said restaurant.

Campement Bidiel

Campement Bidiel

Campement Bidiel

My expectations were pretty much zero, but the omelette was very good, as soon as I had removed the carrots. I do not know why they had filled the omelette with carrots, maybe carrots was the only thing available.

The food was good, but it took almost an hour for them to make the food and I was almost ready to leave, tired of waiting.

We left Campement Bidiel and we drove back to the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary a couple of minutes away. We drive along the lake to the entrance and from there it is a dirt track out in to the wilderness. We hope to see the Arabian Bustard in the desert.

Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Entrance to the park

PN du Djoudj--Station biologique et environs

We stop at the entrance and my Guide take me to go look for the Greater Swamp Warbler in the reeds. He use a recording and the bird is soon showing up. The bird is very shy, just sticking out it's head to look where the sound is coming from.

It was not easy to get pictures as the Greater Swamp Warbler is covered by leafs, but I manage to get a few pictures that I can use.

I also manage to make a recording of the Greater Swamp Warbler so I was very happy when we left to get out in the desert to look for the Arabian Bustard.

Greater Swamp Warbler

Greater Swamp Warbler

Greater Swamp Warbler

Greater Swamp Warbler

Greater Swamp Warbler

Greater Swamp Warbler

Listen to the Greater Swamp Warbler

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

In the reeds

We get out in to the wilderness and there is not many birds to be seen. We spent almost 2 hours in the desert and the only picture I get is of an Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin.

There are many Sudan Golden Sparrows flying around in big groups. But no sign of any Arabian Bustards to be seen.

I ask my Guide to turn around, or it will be very late before we are back at the hotel. Driving back towards the entrance and we are back at 4 o'clock and I turn off my eBird app. We spot one Greater Painted-Snipe just before I turn off the eBird app.

Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin

Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin

Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Greater Painted-Snipe

eBird Report

PN du Djoudj--Station biologique et environs, Saint-Louis, SN
Jul 26, 2025 14:12 - 16:00
Protocol: Traveling
17.773 kilometer(s)
Checklist Comments: Bird watching with Sogui Tours Senegal
14 species

Spur-winged Goose 2
Namaqua Dove 3
Greater Painted-Snipe 1
African Jacana 1
Little Egret 1
Great White Egret 1
White-throated Bee-eater 2
Blue-cheeked Bee-eater 3
Green-backed Camaroptera 1 Heard only
River Prinia 1
Greater Swamp Warbler 1
Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin 1
Black-headed Weaver 6
Sudan Golden Sparrow 100

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S262877860

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)

Today's track at the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Wattled Lapwing

We spot some birds driving back to national road N2, spoonbills and Yellow-billed Storks and I get one picture of a beautiful Wattled Lapwing and that was the last picture from Ross Bethio.

Reaching N2 and we turn towards south and Saint Louis. We drive along N2 and when we approach Saint Louis the Guide ask the driver to stop and go back. He had spotted one Striped Kingfisher sitting on the wire along the road.

Very good spotted and I got both pictures and a recording on the bird and I was happy when we continued towards the hotel.

Striped Kingfisher

Striped Kingfisher

Striped Kingfisher

Listen to the Striped Kingfisher

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my mobile phone using my JBL microphone with the Merlin app. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity.

Sitting on a wire next to the road

We dropped our Guide and I went to the restaurant as soon as we were back at the hotel. My Guide was feeling better and he joined me at the restaurant. I had a very nice omelette, AND APOT OF TEA!

Hotel Diamarek was quickly changing from a hotel that I would never set foot in again, to a hotel I would not mind coming back to.

I was also informed that they had omelette for breakfast. I will try this tomorrow before we leave for Dakar tomorrow.

Click HERE to find out how the breakfast turns out. Will we make it back to Dakar?

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